Joe Wilcox
Joe Wilcox
catalyst confirmed folks free offer opera response strategy thinking
The response to Opera's free offer was probably a catalyst in this position. It may have confirmed a strategy that the Opera folks were already thinking about.
attachment car emotional office operating people system
There's a different emotional attachment to Office than to Windows. The operating system is like the road, but Office is the car you drive. People have emotional attachments to their cars.
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There are a number of ways Opera can make money off the browser, but all that requires volume. Removing the price tag and the banner ads increases the likelihood that more people will use the browser. More eyeballs means more revenue off the browser without charging for or putting banner ads in people's faces.
betting browser clearly drive folks opera pay people popularity reached revenue threshold volume
The Opera folks are betting their browser has reached a threshold of popularity where they can unshackle it from the fees. This clearly is a volume play that could pay off if enough people use the browser. Opera would be able to drive revenue through affiliate relationships, for example.
basic boring operating pc sound sounds system
They don't just want it to look good, they want it to sound good, too. Why have the boring PC 'beep' when even the basic sounds of the operating system can be an experience?
browser compete developers might mozilla opera opposite people software speculate
Some people might speculate that Opera couldn't compete by charging when AOL, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and most other browser developers give away software for free. Not so. Just the opposite is true,
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Look at the auto industry. Do people fault Jaguar for selling fewer cars than Dodge? ... Opera in some ways is a Cadillac browser. You have a lot of extra features built in. The volume might be with the Caravans and the SUVs, but that doesn't mean there isn't money to be made on the other vehicles. Of course, the analogy here is with Web browsers.
blow buy consumers falls operating pc sell semantics shipping system until
You can play semantics and say that the operating system is shipping in 2006, but if consumers can't buy it until 2007, PC manufacturers don't have it to sell to them. This blow falls on the partners.
microsoft rules
The rules are different for Microsoft than other companies.
huge microsoft problems
It would be huge for Microsoft if it could dispatch its problems with Europe,
emulation run
Emulation is slower, sometimes much slower, than applications that run natively.
bet company executives integrated microsoft products three tide tightly today wave windows
The three products launched today are the first wave of a tide of tightly integrated products. While some Microsoft executives have said that Microsoft bet the company on Windows Vista, the real bet is on integrated innovation.
alliance aol assuming decide form influence microsoft strategic talks timing work
Assuming there may have been, or may be, talks between AOL and Microsoft, the timing of the (Yahoo-Microsoft) announcement may have been intentional to influence those presumed discussions. AOL has to decide does it want to work with the Microsoft camp, go its own way or form a strategic alliance with someone else.
changes sound test
Conceptually, the changes all sound pretty good. The test will be the execution. We'll see how everything works.